Accidental Love review

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Starring: Jessica Biel, Jake Gyllenhaal, James Marsden, Catherine Keener, Tracy Morgan, James Brolin, Paul Reubens, Kirstie Allen, David Ramsey, Kurt Fuller.
Year Of Release: 2015
Certificate: 15 (UK)
Runtime: 100 Minutes
Director: David O. Russell credit as Stephen Greene

Synopsis: "A small town waitress gets a nail accidentally lodged in her head causing unpredictable behavior that leads her to Washington, D.C., where sparks fly when she meets a clueless young senator who takes up her cause - but what happens when love interferes with what you stand for?" IMDB

Let me start this by saying sorry, sorry to whoever I hurt or offended which resulted in me watching this film. I must have done something down the line to be cursed with this! I guess this is an indication of where this review it set to go...

"Accidental Love" is releasing Monday 20th and available to buy from Amazon on DVD

The cast of this film on the surface is a wonderful ensemble that would entice even the most cynical Rom-Com watcher like myself to take interest, however they were all beyond below average. I mean this is Jake Gyllenhaal one of the current best actors who comes across like he is winging every line, all the cast felt like they didn't know the script it was all just guess work. Which is beyond surprising considering I am a huge fan of the majority of them, in this film though there was zero chemistry and zero development of these people you were meant to relate to.

Onto the story a pretty boring one at that, none relatable characters, unbelievable events and a down right lack of Comedy. How this is considered a "comedy" I will never know, I smirked once, maybe twice it was a horribly written script everything said and done felt unnatural, the jokes just didn't land and the entire premise of the story was ridiculous. Which comes at as a shock because the writing team have turned out some good films and television shows in recent years, this just comes across as an attempt to not try at all. There was one scene in which Jake Gyllenhaal's character Howard is trying to escape a telling off by jumping out of a ground floor window, I felt like jumping out the second story window of my house at this point!

The production of films is something I am yet to touch on in such a way in a review, however I can't help but think that the production of this film had a huge hand in making this film the mashed together piece of crap it turned out to be. There is countless stories of the production being shut down for many reasons including the lead actors walking off set on more than one occasion. Even resulting in director David O. Russell abandoning production after two years of set backs, pardon the language but the entire production turned into one big cluster fuck of incidents. Which leads me to believe resulted in the poorly cut together film, jumping from scene to scene without and fluidity to it, as WATW? said "Scenes chop and change making Accidental Love feel like a jigsaw puzzle that was put together in the dark."

Overall, this film was abysmal, horrible, horrific ALL of the negative superlatives you could imagine and that is about 0.01% of how close you are. This film genuinely may be the worst film I have ever seen in my life time and that is saying something after 15 years and over 3,000 films seen. There was zero redeeming factors for this film for me, it is very easy to see why David O. Russell turned suit and ran the other way. Do NOT fall for Mr Russell's name on the poster this is nothing like he has done in recent years. If you don't want to take my word for it check out What About The Twinkie? or RT Write-Ups reviews of the film or any film fan reviewing site, I imagine they will all come to a similar conclusion.

0/10

Accident Love is released through Arrow Films on DVD Monday 20th

Prisoners review

Genre: Drama, Thriller.
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davies, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano.
Year Of Release: 2013
Certificate: 15 (UK)
Runtime: 153 Minutes
Director: Denis Villeneuve

Synopsis: "When Keller Dover's daughter and her friend go missing, he takes matters into his own hands as the police pursue multiple leads and the pressure mounts. But just how far will this desperate father go to protect his family?" IMDB

I will start off saying I was very apprehensive going into "The Prisoners", I have personally never been a fan of Gyllenhaal's acting I always found his style to be boring. Hugh Jackman on the other hand I am a huge fan of being a lover of X-Men for roughly half of my life.

Hugh Jackman in this film was truly a spectacle to behold, he commands the screen with every second he is on it, his performance as a broken father really resonates with the audience, he really makes you pull at your own moral compass. How far would we truly go to save our blood, Jake Gyllenhaal gives an equally as good performance as Detective Loki (yes his name really is that cool). Gyllenhaal is equally as powerful. He incredibly embodies the troubled detective void of his emotions, culminating in real feeling ticks and twitches you begin to feel really embody the characters progression.

I would personally say it is career best performances from Jackman and Gyllenhall, but that is to not take away from the rest of the cast, Terrance Howard is truly back to the quality of acting that won him his Academy Award nomination for "Hustle & Flow" and the performance he gave in "Crash". While Paul Dano might not have had as much screen time as some of the other actors, he was truly superb playing the emotionally and intellectually stunted Alex Jones who is said to have the IQ of  ten year old.

While the film is not entirely perfect, Denis Villeneuve makes and incredible film for his Hollywood

debut and first English language film. His use of tension building is second to none in recent years, "edge of the seat" stuff in a understatement, you start at the edge of your seat, by the end of the film you are on the floor. It has a wonderful noir feel to the film, and the use of Roger Deakins' cinematography was a true spectacle to behold, his work has been nominated for twelve Academy Awards so he is doing something right.

Aaron Guzikowski writes some of the most enjoyable scenes I have seen in a thriller film for a long time, it is hard to believe that he is so early in his writing career considering his amazing grasp of twists and turns and brings a true mystery to the audience. There is a few moments of the film that are predictable but that happens with ANY film written, however for a relative newcomer Guzikowski is superb in his work.

Overall, the film a truly a roller coaster ride of emotions that will keep you enticed from start to the end filled with powerful performances from the entire cast. The film does have a pretty long running time which may scare a few people off, but I assure you it is worth the long watch, that is if you are open to some violence and a few torture based scenes. If you get passed these aspects you will be in for a treat of a wonderfully shot, brilliantly directed and beautifully acted film by the leads.

9/10

"Prisoners" trailer and poster

Whenever I see Jake Gyllenhaal attached to a film I instantly switch off, then I see the name of Hugh Jackman there an my interest peaks. They are the two leading roles in the upcoming Crime Thriller "Prisoners" anybody else notice that the majority of Jackmans roles always seem to have him looking like a bit of a vagrant/down an out guy. This film looks pretty bad ass, could be a great watch if it is anything like the trailer portrays it, Warner Bros. have given us a poster and a trailer for the film check them out below.